


Never Mind My Bruises

by j_quadrifrons



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Backstory Kisses, Canon Asexual Character, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Wishful Thinking Kisses, dubcon & noncon warnings in the relevant chapter notes, kiss prompts, lots of smooches and lots of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 04:07:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20464754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_quadrifrons/pseuds/j_quadrifrons
Summary: A collection of kisses, written in response to prompts on Tumblr. Mostly Jon/Martin, a couple Lonely Eyes, a few others, each stand alone.





	1. "War's End" kiss (Jon/Martin)

When Martin sat down on the bench next to him Jon startled, something Martin had never thought he’d see again. He was sure Jon could See everything by now. “Penny for your thoughts.”

Jon shook his head tiredly, then shoved aside the lock of gray hair the motion had thrown into his face. “I just wanted a few more minutes before I go…back. In there.”

Martin hummed in agreement, deciding not to mention that Jon had been sat out here, staring across the street to the Magnus Institute, for more than an hour. He hesitated, then asked, “Do you think it’s really over?”

“No,” Jon said immediately, bitter and exhausted. “If I’ve learned anything it’s that this has all happened before and it will likely all come round again, whether we’re here to stop it or not.” He sighed, and it seemed to drain the rigidity out of his spine as well; he slid a little closer to Martin, leaning their shoulders together. “But I think it’s done for now, as much as it can be.”

Martin nodded. “Good enough,” he said softly. He let his hand fall to his side and meet Jon’s, and when he didn’t pull away, Martin turned his wrist and laced their fingers together. After a long, tense moment, he glanced over at Jon, who was staring now at their interlocked hands as if he’d never seen such a thing in his life. Martin bit back a smile and squeezed.

He got a startled look in response, and Jon started to pull away a little bit, then seemed to change his mind. He licked his lips nervously. “Martin,” he started, hesitating. “I don’t - I’m not human any more, Martin. I haven’t been for a long time, and I.” He met Martin’s eyes, looked away again. “I’m not the same person you.” He bit off the end of the sentence hard, squeezing his eyes closed.

“Maybe not,” Martin said when it was clear Jon wasn’t going to finish his thought. “I’m not the same person either.” How much Jon knew about what had happened - well, that was a matter for a different time. What was more important now was – “I still love you.”

Jon took a deep, shuddering breath before opening his eyes. They were shining, his eyelashes beginning to clump with unshed tears, and Martin felt a wash of tenderness followed by a profound relief. He’d lost so much, missed so many opportunities, but he hadn’t lost this. He leaned in and Jon met him halfway. His kiss was soft, tentative, and much too brief, but Martin had waited this long. Now, finally, they had time. 


	2. "We can never be together" kiss (Peter/Elias)

Mordecai Lukas’s younger son has been flirting with him all through dinner, blatant enough that there’s no chance he’s gone unnoticed, although no one has mentioned a thing. The others call him Jonah here, now that they know who he is, but Peter insists on calling him Alexander in that unbearably familiar tone of voice.

When the ladies retire from the table, Peter professes a distaste for port and invites Alexander to join him in the smoking room, and he goes. Insatiable curiosity is, after all, the hallmark of his patron.

Peter’s demeanor doesn’t change when they’re alone, which is infuriating in its own right. He is not accustomed to making the first move, so he maintains his distance as Peter’s eyes rove in a manner far more intimate than touch to one of the Beholding’s sworn servants. When Peter offers him a glass of port, he can’t help but comment sardonically that he’d heard Peter didn’t like the stuff.

“Perhaps it’s the company one drinks it in,” Peter says with a smirk. “My father’s attitude could sour fresh milk, after all.” He winks as he hands over the glass, and when their fingers touch, he lingers.

When Peter turns aside, though, and moves toward one of the armchairs flanking the fire, the question rises to his tongue unbidden. “Is it Forsaken that holds you back, or do you lack the courage of your attractions?”

The look in Peter’s eyes is dangerous, as is the way he moves in too close, too quickly. One hand occupied with the port and the other with his cigar, he simply leans down the scant inch’s different in their height and presses their lips together. Peter licks into his mouth, heated and demanding, sucking on his lower lip for a fierce moment before he gentles the kiss into something sweeter, full of longing.

He’s fully dazed when Peter pulls back, struggling to catch his breath. Either he can’t quite get his eyes to focus or there’s the faintest hint of a cold fog in the room. “My patron savors the pain of wanting what you can’t have,” Peter says breathlessly before stepping back to a more respectable distance. “Just as yours knows all about looking at what you can’t touch, I dare say.”

He can’t argue.


	3. Jealous kiss (Tim/Martin)

The mistletoe had been a joke, really. An excuse to get a little too enthusiastic with Christmas decorations and annoy their uptight boss all at the same time. Turned out Jon just glared at it, not really all that differently than he glared at anything else that interrupted his daily routine, and proceeded to ignore it completely. Tim had tried calling him Scrooge for a day, but it really wasn’t any fun when he couldn’t get a reaction.

Martin, on the other hand, was clearly losing his mind. He twitched every time someone walked through the doorway where the stuff was hung, and at first Tim thought it was just that he was afraid of being caught under it until he noticed the way the tips of Martin’s ears turned red when he looked up at the doorway and saw Jon.

He’s not _jealous_, Tim tells himself. He knows he’s an attractive guy and he doesn’t need everyone in the world to be into him. He’s just - frustrated, that’s all. Martin is sweet, and he’s got cute freckles and a dimple when he smiles and a lovely kissable mouth, and he only has eyes for Jonathan Sims, who never looks twice at him unless it’s to berate him for something that’s only marginally his fault. So Martin watches Jon, and Tim watches Martin, and Sasha laughs at both of them, and Jon doesn’t notice anything at all. They’ve only been working here for a few months but it’s starting to become a pattern.

So it’s not that he orchestrates it; that implies a level of planning that Tim doesn’t usually bother with. It’s just that he sees Martin packing up to go to lunch and looking wistfully at Jon’s office as if the man would ever actually leave to eat something if he wasn’t being forced to do it, and he finds himself getting up and matching his pace so that he bumps into Martin just beside the door, where the mistletoe is hung. Tim gives it a significant look and waggles his eyebrows -if this goes wrong he can pass it off as a joke.

Martin blushes adorably. It sets off his freckles, Tim notices, pleased. “What, really?” he says, but he doesn’t sound offended or anything.

“Come on,” Tim answers, working hard to hit that tone of good humor and plausible deniability, “it’s been a week and I haven’t got to kiss anyone yet, I’m very disappointed.”

“Do you always go around kissing your coworkers?” Martin mutters, but he doesn’t move away, and he’s looking at Tim’s mouth.

This is going better than he’d hoped. “If I can get away with it,” he says, and he puts a hand on Martin’s cheek before leaning in and kissing him.

It’s more than he’d usually go for under the circumstances, slow and lingering. Martin’s mouth opens under his without hesitation and Tim deepens the kiss, digging his fingers into Martin’s soft curly hair. When he breaks away, Martin takes a deep, ragged breath and blinks a couple of times. “Oh - um,” he says incoherently. “Yeah.”

_Take that, Jonathan Sims_, Tim thinks, smug. He licks his lips and enjoys the way Martin’s eyes are drawn back to his mouth. “All right, then. Lunch?” he suggests cheerfully.


	4. Seductive kiss (Jon/Martin)

Jon isn’t good at sex, he knows that. Whatever practice he’d had was a long time ago and he’s lacking whatever vital instinct that makes it so easy for everyone else. And Martin insists that he doesn’t mind, that he doesn’t need it, doesn’t want to do anything that would make Jon uncomfortable, but Jon also Knows the thoughts that run through Martin’s mind when he looks at him, sometimes, and how hard he has to work to focus on anything else. (It doesn’t bother him, he realized with surprise some time ago. Usually the idea of someone thinking of him in a sexual context is repellent, but this is Martin, and he’s always been different.)

He wants this, though, not for his own sake but for Martin’s, because he knows how badly Martin wants him and Jon doesn’t actually mind it and he wants Martin to have everything he’s ever wanted. He can’t undo all the terrible things that have happened in the past, all the hurt he himself has caused, intentional and unintentional, but he can do this.

So on a quiet night in, he settles into Martin’s lap, knees on either side of his hips, and sets to figuring out how this works exactly. He kisses Martin slowly at first, exploring familiar territory, before testing Martin’s lips with his tongue. Martin gasps and arches into him; a success. Jon is beginning to feel light-headed from lack of breath, and that won’t do at all, he’s supposed to be concentrating here, so he pulls back to trail kisses along Martin’s jaw. There’s the faintest rasp of stubble there, an unfamiliar but intriguing sensation. Touching his lips to a spot behind Martin’s ear elicits a small whine, another success, and Jon commits to it with tongue and teeth and suction. Martin is panting his name, hands clutching at Jon’s hips, and Jon thinks he’s beginning to understand the appeal of this after all.


	5. Giggly kiss (Peter/Elias)

“Feeling nostalgic?” Peter asked, stepping out of the Lonely and trailing a bit of fog behind him that mingled with the smoke in the air.

“Feeling relaxed,” Elias replied from his position sprawled out on his sofa. And he was, really – he was only halfway through the joint but it was good pot and it had been a while.

Peter nudged him over to sit down at his side, bracing an arm on the back of the sofa to look down at him with a smirk. It was an impossibly fond look, really, smug and insufferable, but Elias had known him long enough now to know what fond looked like on Peter Lukas. “You would need chemical assistance to get there, you stuck-up bastard,” Peter said, and ah yes, there was that fondness again.

Elias smiled up at him, aiming for beatific and just self-aware enough to know he was probably hitting sappy instead. He didn’t particularly mind. “If you had to deal with my staff you’d take whatever means necessary as well. Also,” he admitted, “I found a stash.”

“And how old is that stash?” Peter asked incredulously.

Elias shrugged against the arm of the sofa. “No idea. It was in one of the researcher’s desks.” He took another drag and blew a mouthful of smoke at Peter’s face.

He wafted it away with a hand, saying, “You’re absurd,” but when Elias breathed in another lungful of smoke Peter leaned down to kiss him. He made a face when he withdrew. “Disgusting. Don’t know how you can stand the stuff.”

Elias laughed at the look on his face and, finding he couldn’t stop, hauled Peter down for another kiss. It was terrible, awkward and smoky and interrupted by his irrepressible laughter, but the taste of Peter’s smile was worth it.


	6. Angry kiss (Jon/Martin)

Jon comes to on the floor of his office and regrets it immediately. When he was unconscious at least his head didn’t hurt. His eyes open automatically but he closes them again; the lighting down here has always been atrocious but it’s much too much right now. There was something unusual about the scene but he only saw it for a brief moment and he can’t think right now.

“Jon!” Martin’s voice is somewhere between desperate and furious.

Ah yes. That would be it. Jon opens his eyes again cautiously and yes, there’s Martin, looking thinner and a little more drawn than the last time Jon had seen him, but very much actually there. And very angry. Jon doesn’t think he’s ever seen Martin properly angry before; it’s…quite a sight.

“Jesus, Jon,” Martin says again, and then he grabs Jon’s face and kisses him. _It hurts_ is the first thing Jon thinks; the second is _don’t stop_. He makes a noise that ought to be embarrassing but he doesn’t care because Martin is here and he’s got his teeth in Jon’s lower lip and it’s possible he’s given himself a concussion collapsing on the floor but that’s a problem for later, surely.

Martin’s still glaring when he pulls away - not too far, because Jon has his hands on Martin’s arms and he has no intention of letting go. “What -”

“I thought you were dead. Again. Jesus, Jon, what did you do?” There’s none of the tremor in his voice that Jon associates with Martin’s distress.

He thinks back. “I was - well, I was Looking. For - ” For Martin, in part. For Peter Lukas, perhaps. For answers, for some way out of this trap he walked into half a decade ago and only now feels closing in around him. “It’s gotten more dangerous than it used to be.”

Martin huffs, an unamused laugh. “Obviously.” He helps to pull Jon up so that he’s at least sitting on the floor instead of sprawled out on it, and after a moment’s pause he runs a hand through Jon’s hair. It’s nearly enough to soothe the headache away and Jon leans into his touch for a moment, but Martin is already pulling back. “You don’t seem to have cracked your head open, at least.” Oh. Of course that’s all he -

“I’d be fine even if I had,” he mutters. “I’m a bit harder to damage these days.” He fervently hopes Martin doesn’t ask how he knows that.

“I’ll say.” Martin’s face has softened, just a little, and Jon has to fight to still the fluttering feeling in his heart. “You also don’t breathe when you’re unconscious, did you know that?”

Jon blinks at him in surprise. “I - no? Why would I?”

Martin laughs, dry and bitter, but he slumps forward, leaning his forehead against Jon’s. “I’m still very mad at you, Jonathan Sims,” he says softly. This close it feels like his words are going straight into Jon’s mouth. “You promised me you wouldn’t do that again.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, and it feels like every apology he never managed to say out loud. “I’m sorry.” He still hasn’t let go of Martin’s arms.


	7. Forehead kiss (Jon/Martin)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon specifically requested feral!Archivist so this is a prequel to [something that used to resemble a soul](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19463497) and is a little dubcon-y, as that verse will tend to be

Martin puts a hand on the back of Jon’s neck and squeezes gently, just for the pleasure of feeling the shudder that runs through him in response. Jon glares up at him, angry at his own response but, bound and gagged as he is, unable to do anything about it. Martin squeezes again, and Jon’s eyes slip closed even as his shoulders tense as he strains against the shackles.

This has taken all his focus for weeks, ever since he found Jon walking the streets hungry and barely human, but Martin doesn’t begrudge the effort. Jon is the most important thing in this world made new and terrible by the Eye - with no more rituals to stop, no more enemies to fight, and the Institute practically running itself these days, Martin can turn all his attention to what’s really important. Nothing and no one needs him as much as Jon does, and Martin is happy to give him everything he needs.

Jon’s back arches as he twists against iron shackles threaded through with spider’s webs. (The iron isn’t really necessary, Martin has to admit, but it’s poetic and besides, Jon looks lovely in them.) It’s been weeks since he’s had a statement of any kind and he’s both weak and furious with hunger. It’s painful to watch but it’s necessary, if Jon is ever again going to be anything other than a ravenous appetite to feed the Eye that watches over all of them, and if Jon has to suffer through it Martin is not going to leave him alone.

Another shudder, and Martin runs his fingers through Jon’s hair, stroking the soft hollow at the back of his skull. “It’s all right,” he says soothingly, a meaningless platitude but Jon relaxes minutely at the sound of his voice. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.” He presses a soft kiss to Jon’s forehead, and Jon arches again, this time pressing into Martin’s hand at the top of his spine. Martin doesn’t bother to repress a proud smile. “You’re doing so well, Jon,” he whispers into Jon’s skin, and he’s sure that the shudder this time isn’t from the hunger at all.


	8. Surprised kiss (Peter/Elias)

“Lunch at one,” read the note on Elias’s desk - scribbled directly onto his paperwork, because apparently Peter still didn’t know what a Post-it note was. Elias was mildly annoyed to realize he found it rather endearing. Just as well, really; but then again, Peter seemed to have a sixth sense for when Elias was willing to tolerate his more frivolous indulgences.

This, for example. With anyone else it would be a trivial effort for Elias to find out where they were, and with more than enough time to make the reservation. Peter, of course, cheated; he’d wrap himself in isolating fog too dense to be easily Seen through and find someplace unlikely to sit and count the minutes until Elias was late. It was one of his favorite games, an utterly trivial use of their powers that Elias normally scorned and yet could never quite resist.

So Elias spent the last hour of the morning revising the spoiled paperwork and Looking, as subtly as possible. He did have one advantage, at least; he was familiar enough with Peter’s habits and preferences to be able to narrow his search significantly. For all his mysterious airs, Peter was nothing if not predictable.

At a quarter to one Elias left his office and took a pleasant stroll down to a cafe just a few blocks from the Institute. It was not the same cafe Peter had been so fond of taking him to during their first long engagement, but it did bear an unmistakable resemblance.

No one else would have noticed the tall, distinguished gentleman sat at an outdoor table reading a newspaper; he was hidden far too effectively for that. Which was bound to be terribly inconvenient if they actually wanted to eat lunch, so Elias gave in to temptation and plucked the newspaper out of Peter’s hands. Peter’s mouth dropped in surprise, and before he could say anything that would make him regret playing along, Elias leaned down and kissed him.

Peter responded with enthusiasm, naturally, and the kiss grew much deeper than was really appropriate for a Chelsea cafe in the middle of the afternoon, but it served both of Elias’s purposes; when he finally withdrew and took his seat, a waiter was hovering nearby pretending there was nothing untoward going on, and Peter was speechless.

“You’re getting better at that,” Peter said fondly when the waiter had left them alone again.

Elias smirked at him. “Or you’re getting lazy,” he suggested, a concession he would not have offered to just anyone.

“Perhaps it’s just that I’d be devastated if I had to dine alone.”

“A terrible fate,” Elias agreed. “I would hate for you to be lonely.”

Peter’s startled burst of laughter drew irritable glances from several other tables, and Elias smiled back at him and basked in the attention.


	9. "I almost lost you" kiss (Jon/Martin)

Martin had had all kinds of fantasies about how this was going to go, the triumphant return from saving the world, everyone coming home battered and bruised but grinning and relieved and _alive_. And maybe that would be it and they’d be able to get back to some semblance of a normal life; maybe the police would leave and Tim would relax and joke around again and maybe when he saw Jon he’d finally be able to say something…

He’d been aware they were fantasies, of course, that they had never once been lucky enough for a real happy ending, but then again even his darkest worries had been better than this. He hasn’t spent this many consecutive hours in a hospital since he was sixteen, just before he dropped out of school because his mum couldn’t take it any more, but the sounds and smells bring it all back, old anxiety twisting with new in his stomach. Basira’s been in surgery for hours, and if you’d asked him yesterday he would have said that he wasn’t especially worried about her but if he worries about her now he doesn’t have to think about Tim, or about –

They’d let him see Jon, to his surprise. It was…terrible. He was so still, so impossibly cold. Dead, according to the doctors, except also clearly not, the monitors showing an impossible amount of activity and his eyes flickering behind closed lids as if he were doing nothing more terrible than dreaming. Martin had stayed there holding his cold hand anyway, and when it was almost time for Melanie to be coming back from the hospital canteen, he’d leaned down and pressed a chaste, shaky kiss to Jon’s cold lips.

It wasn’t that he’d expected it to do anything. This wasn’t a fairy tale, and he certainly wasn’t Prince Charming. It was just - he had come so close to losing _everything_, the only friends he had left and the man he loved, however hopelessly. It was mourning and relief and a confession all at once, and maybe it wasn’t fair to Jon but it’s been a very long time since anything has been fair to _him_, and Martin is very, very tired.

(After the kiss he had stayed very close for a moment and whispered into Jon’s ear. He didn’t care if he was heard or not. “You’re going to be okay,” he’d said. “I promise.”)


	10. Kiss on the neck (Peter/Jon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technically this is the beginning of the Peter/Jon noncon I promised to write Milli more than a month ago and haven't gotten to yet, but it *also* contains neck kisses.

He should have known better. Elias has been bragging for years about his new Archivist, how talented he is, how powerful, but Peter had been thinking of him in terms of Gertrude Robinson, who had been clever and dangerous but ultimately little more than human. Jonathan Sims is much more than that, and when Peter goes walking through the Archives wrapped in a Lonely fog the Archivist not only sees him but pulls him out of it with a burst of strength that Peter would never have expected.

Peter can’t help it; he laughs. Jon is glaring at him like he’ll go for Peter’s throat at a moment’s notice but the fear is coming off him in waves, so thick in the air Peter can taste it, and it’s delicious. “Elias was right,” Peter tells him. “Very impressive.”

Jon’s eyes narrow. “What - ”

That’s as far as he gets before Peter has a hand clamped rough over his mouth and nose. He uses the grip to back the Archivist up against a filing cabinet, hemming him in with the bulk of his body when Jon twists awkwardly to avoid coming into close contact. “I did think he’d have taught you some manners, though,” he says, as friendly as ever. “Or that you’d know better than to ask questions.” Jon’s still glaring at him with death in his eyes, but he gives a small nod, barely able to jerk his head under Peter’s hand. “Lovely,” Peter says, and shifts his grip to Jon’s hair.

“Now,” he continues, tugging firmly until Jon’s chin is tilted up and his throat bared, “I can’t lay all the blame at your feet. I have been neglecting the Archives, I’ll admit. Perhaps now is a good time to improve our working relationship.”

Jon works his jaw, which must be sore - Peter can still see the imprint of his fingers on Jon’s cheek. “And what -” He cuts himself off this time. “That would depend,” he says more carefully, “on what you had in mind.”

Peter grins at him, leans in and presses an open-mouthed kiss to that long, lovely throat. At the sharp intake of breath above him, he sinks in his teeth, relishing the stifled noise the Archivist tries to hide.


	11. Angry kiss (Jon/Tim)

Tim is storming out of his office again, another petty fight about the research backlog and and the inadequate number of spare keys and the unreliable heating which is really about none of those things, and something about the set of his shoulders and the angle of the light reminds Jon painfully of another fight, god, two years ago now, the only one of their - whatever it was. Not a relationship, Tim didn’t do relationships, and not “friends with benefits” because Jon didn’t do that, but it had been something, the two of them together more nights than not, sleeping in each other’s beds and watching terrible movies on each other’s sofas, the friendly comfort of another warm body and kisses that didn’t have to mean anything.

“What happened?” Jon asks before he can stop himself. It’s a terrible question; he knows what happened. He just still doesn’t know _why_, and that uncertainty is what always stops him from apologizing, the fact that he can’t be entirely sure. Tim stops halfway out the door, turns around, his face is twisted up in anger and misery, and Jon wants to apologize anyway. “We - it didn’t used to be like this,” he says instead.

Tim stalks back over to him and Jon gives him the courtesy of not stepping back; he can do that much, at least, even as the voice in the back of his head whispers _he might be a murderer and you’ll never know until it’s too late_. He’s never been able to read Tim. He carries himself with too much confidence, no matter what he’s feeling, something that’s too foreign for Jon to parse properly. So it’s a complete surprise when Tim laces his fingers through Jon’s hair and leans down for a bruising, biting kiss. Jon’s breathless with more than surprise when Tim pulls back, hand still cupping the back of Jon’s head, and hisses, “_You _didn’t used to be like this.” He drops his hand and gives them a few paces’ space, a professional distance again, except for the way that his lips are red and his eyes are too bright. “Sorry, boss, you can’t pin this one on me.” He turns on his heel and then he’s properly gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come yell about TMA with me, I have too many feelings  
[@j_quadrifrons](https://twitter.com/j_quadrifrons), [backofthebookshelf](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com)


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